


Take the Wheel

by mosylu



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Gen, teen Iris
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 04:15:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12697155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mosylu/pseuds/mosylu
Summary: Iris's dad has always been the one to take care of her. On a late-night drive home from a school event, Iris realizes that she can take care of her dad sometimes.





	Take the Wheel

**Author's Note:**

> Another self-prompt for NaNo! From the 100 Ways to Say I Love You list: “Pull over. Let me drive for awhile.” This one is for Iris and Joe, because shipping is nice and all, but the human heart is vast and contains multitudes.

Iris curled into the passenger seat, yawning. It had been a long day. “Daddy, can we get Mickey D’s before we get to the highway?”

“Sure thing,” he said, reaching over to pat her knee. They’d gone out to dinner with Barry’s Science Olympiad team, but Iris was craving ice cream, and besides, her dad had spent half the dinner outside the restaurant on his phone and had missed most of the food.

“I can’t believe Barry’s team actually won the whole thing. State champions!” And Barry had spit out the answer to the tie-breaking question, his eyes shining. Iris’s throat felt raw from screaming for him.

“They did good.”

She fixed him with a beady eye. “And I can’t believe you wouldn’t let me stay at the hotel with them.”

He laughed long and loud. “Babygirl, you dreamin’ if you think that was ever gonna happen.”

“But I rode up with them!” Her dad had made a deal with the Science Olympiad coach because he’d had to go into work this morning.

“And you’re riding back with me.”

“Barry got to stay.”

“Barry’s on the team, and besides - ”

“He’s a boy?” she pouted.

“Tell me the truth, can you see Barry Allen getting up to shenanigans? Boy’s probably already in bed, reading one of his science textbooks.”

Iris kept her own counsel. She happened to know that Becky Cooper, who was the shenanigans type, had been whispering with her nasty friend Madison, and Iris didn’t think it had been about the questions in the second round.

But if her dad got wind of that, he would turn the car around and go get Barry. And she’d promised to quit interfering in Barry’s relationship with Becky, on pain of Barry never speaking to her ever again. She sniffed to herself. Barry Allen was just gonna have to learn all on his own what a praying mantis of a girl like Becky Cooper did to her boyfriends.

“Why’d you get there late?” she asked idly, watching out the window for the familiar golden arches.

“Mmmm?”

“Started at noon, you didn’t get there until nearly four.” And he hadn’t even texted he’d be late until after one.

“Work stuff,” he said, low.

She turned her head. In the flicker of the streetlights, she could see the thousand-miles-away expression on his face. She’d seen that every so often, all her life, but only recently was she connecting it with the stories she had to read for civics class about murders and drug busts and officer-involved shootings and all the things that went far too wrong in Central City. She’d always known that was what her daddy did, of course, but lately it was too easy to think of him in the middle of that.

“Was it bad?” she said. _Did anyone get hurt?_

_Did anyone die?_

He was silent for a long moment. “Wasn’t good,” he said.

She looked out the window and suddenly squealed “Pull over! Mickey D’s!”

He screeched into the right-hand lane to a chorus of honking. They bumped into the parking lot a hair too fast. “Sweet Jesus, Iris Ann, you nearly gave me a heart attack.”

“I really want ice cream,” she said.

He parked and turned off the car. “Let’s go inside. I hate talking to those drive-thru squawk boxes.”

This time of night, they only had to wait behind a couple of people. The fluorescent lights glared down, glinting off the speckle of grey in her daddy’s hair. She tried not to look at it, and found herself looking at the lines around his eyes instead, and the wrinkle in his forehead that meant he had the beginnings of a headache.

When they got up to the counter, she got an ice cream sundae with M&Ms and extra chocolate sauce, and her dad got a cup of coffee.

He popped the lid off and blew on the surface as they walked outside. She took a few quick steps to get ahead of him and went around to the driver’s side.

He looked up. “What are you doing?”

“Let me drive for awhile,” she said, hugging her ice cream sundae to herself.

“We’re about to get on the highway. At night.”

“I have my license, Daddy!”

“Yeah, and the shine hasn’t worn off it yet.”

“Come on,” she wheedled, “you’ll be right there. I can do it.”

He opened his mouth. Closed it again. Shook his head. “One hour,” he said. “Shelbyville’s the halfway mark. We switch there, you hear me?”

“Yessir,” she said, and climbed in. Wow. That had barely taken any convincing at all. Her dad really was wiped out.

She adjusted the seat, adjusted the mirrors, settled her ice cream on the dash - “Think again,” her dad said, and put it in the cup holder.

She turned on the radio and twisted the dial until she found the poppiest, peppiest top 40 station it offered. He said, “Nuh- _uh_ , no, ma'am,” and switched it over to the CD function. Of course, it was one of his deadly smooth jazz albums.

“Da-ddy,” she moaned. “Everyone knows driver picks the tunes.”

“Yeah, but car payments give me veto power.“ He turned it up and settled into the passenger seat with a smug expression.

When she was sure he wasn’t looking, she smirked to herself.

The highway was a block away, and she merged into traffic without much trouble - "Okay, you’re gonna wanna get up to speed” “Daddy, I got it” - and hit the gas.

He pointed out the various turns she needed to take to get out of the state capital’s spaghetti maze of interstates. As they got out into more open country, headed for Central City, they talked a little about nothing much. His replies started coming slower and his voice softer. When he’d been quiet for several minutes, she looked over. His head was tipped against the window, his eyes half-closed.

Listening to the music, or dozing off?

She stayed quiet and watched the road, eating a bite of ice cream every now and then. The sugar kept her awake, and if she had to swear at other cars, she mouthed the curses. If he was asleep, it would wake him up and if he was awake, he’d threaten to wash her mouth out with soap.

The jazz CD reached its end and flipped back to the beginning.

When she saw the signs for the Shelbyville, she checked on her dad again. He was definitely asleep, his head bobbing slightly against the window. It was hard to tell in the orangey light of the overhead lamps, but the lines around his eyes looked shallower, and the headache wrinkle in his forehead had smoothed out. She reached over and patted his knee, light enough not to wake him up.

Then, singing along under her breath, Iris sailed past the Shelbyville exit and kept driving into the night.

FINIS

**Author's Note:**

> I'm running a NaNo prompt series at my tumblr, mosylufanfic.tumblr.com. Come see me!


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